Ch 9 What Would Mrs. Ratliff Do? Main themes - Good teaching is most important to student learning -Unions -Business models -Power to one person to fire teachers Mrs. Ratliff – English teacher, nonconventional teaching, not in a union -Pushed her students to do better and taught her students to learn not only literature but character and responsibility -Ravitch says Ratliff wouldn’t be considered a “great” teacher by data driven facts and since she didn’t produce test scores -Unions prevent removal of “ineffective” teachers, but that might remove the actual good teachers -Run schools like a business? -Michelle Rhee Chancellor of schools in NY supported getting rid of bad teachers by getting rid of tenure -Rhee said performance doesn’t depend on poverty or family it only depends on teachers ability to teach -Ravitch feels unions are a right of the teachers and important -Tenure is an argument against unions since it keeps bad teachers, Ravitch argues against it -Original ideas for reforms did not include tying teachers pay to performance of students but over time this is what it evolved into due to NCLB and Value added assessment - Myths popped up that the achievement gaps could be closed in a few years with better teachers and policies which fueled people wanting to have complete power to fire bad teachers at will -Teach for America allows teachers to teach without degrees, results showed teachers with degrees produced higher achievement
Ch 9 What Would Mrs. Ratliff Do?
Main themes - Good teaching is most important to student learning
-Unions
-Business models
-Power to one person to fire teachers
Mrs. Ratliff – English teacher, nonconventional teaching, not in a union
-Pushed her students to do better and taught her students to learn not only literature but character and responsibility
-Ravitch says Ratliff wouldn’t be considered a “great” teacher by data driven facts and since she didn’t produce test scores
-Unions prevent removal of “ineffective” teachers, but that might remove the actual good teachers
-Run schools like a business?
-Michelle Rhee Chancellor of schools in NY supported getting rid of bad teachers by getting rid of tenure
-Rhee said performance doesn’t depend on poverty or family it only depends on teachers ability to teach
-Ravitch feels unions are a right of the teachers and important
-Tenure is an argument against unions since it keeps bad teachers, Ravitch argues against it
-Original ideas for reforms did not include tying teachers pay to performance of students but over time this is what it evolved into due to NCLB and Value added assessment
- Myths popped up that the achievement gaps could be closed in a few years with better teachers and policies which fueled people wanting to have complete power to fire bad teachers at will
-Teach for America allows teachers to teach without degrees, results showed teachers with degrees produced higher achievement